


maybe you, baby

by symmetrophobic



Category: GOT7
Genre: Gen, M/M, ay, cold jokes, iceman jackson, xmen!au, you know what that means
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 06:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13242762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symmetrophobic/pseuds/symmetrophobic
Summary: jackson's the cute new guy, with a big smile, bad jokes and cold hands. good thing mark can't hold them, anyway. markson xmen!au.





	maybe you, baby

**Author's Note:**

> happy new year friends~ have been sitting on this for way too long and decided to get a grip on my life and finish it today /o\ originally a prompt from 7fics! was supposed to be way longer and angstier but i felt it would be apt to start 2018 with some smiles :"") 
> 
>    
>  ok it's not really funny but it's a good joke though overall i'll say  
>  please be happy friends

“Hi.”

Mark looks up pensively from where he’s trying (and failing) to complete a conclusion for his essay, a pen in his mouth. There’s a very unfamiliar, very tanned boy standing in front of him with a Very Big smile, a hand extended.

There’s an abundance of empty seats around them, seeing as it’s a Saturday afternoon, so Mark wonders what this guy wants. He’s not one to judge, but it’s a little freaky to intentionally share tables with strangers (and that’s saying something coming from a student in this school). Mark’s rethinking the pros and cons of carrying pepper spray around the school when the boy continues speaking.

“Name’s Jackson, I was assigned to your unit,” the boy says. He’s wearing a loose black T-shirt with a band name Mark vaguely recognises, a backwards snapback and black jeans, and his forearm is lean and muscled, like he does sports often. “The grumpy sunglasses boy with the piercings in our team says I’m rooming with you.”

Mark unfolds his arms, tucking his hands into sweater paws. “Space must be getting tight, then.”

Jackson’s sincerely bright expression doesn’t falter. “I just got here this morning, it’s a cool place you all got here- grumpy sunglasses man says you’re supposed to show me around. I’ll buy you dinner?”

Mark eyeballs him for a good five seconds or so, before shrugging, shaking back his sweater sleeves to accept Jackson’s hand in a handshake. “My name’s Mark. Mark Tuan, from California, US.”

“Nice to meet you Mark. Jackson Wang, from Hong Kong,” He reaches up, flipping his snapback around to show the white 852 emblazoned across the front. Jackson settles in the seat across Mark, and Mark swears his eyes flash blue for a second there, before settling on him with barely concealed friendly interest. “Cool gloves, by the way.”

Mark flashes him a wry smile, picking up his pen, black gloved fingers melting back into his sweater sleeves once more. “Thanks. I like them too.”

*

Jackson is, very generally and simply put, everything that Mark is not.

He’s the kind of guy to strut into a room and walk out friends with everyone in it. He’s loud. Friendly. Enthusiastic about life and everything it has to offer. And very, very touchy.

Mark carefully extricates his elbow from where Jackson’s looped his arm with his on the way from the classrooms to the dorm area for the third time, politely reminding him that he’s not comfortable being touched. Jackson apologises for the eighth time, and proceeds to forget about 30 seconds later when he grabs Mark’s arm to point at something.

“Hey, look!”

With pursed lips, Mark grudgingly looks out of the window where Jackson’s pointing, at the various pillows floating outside. They’re almost done with the circuit tour of the classrooms, and Mark’s trying (and failing) to remember where the labs are,  Mark makes a small annoyed noise of  _so?_

“There are pillows! Floating! Outside!” Jackson has this amazing ability to put exclamation marks on every word he says. It’s very annoying. Also a little cute. But mostly annoying.

“Yeah, Jinyoung usually does his target practice around this time,” Mark mumbles. “You might wanna watch out for the open-…”

Mark’s warning comes about a split second too late- the pillows shoot in (mostly) one direction,  _mostly_  because one errant pillow comes flying in through the open window. It’s the years of carefully honed experience (and only that) which guide Mark to jump out of the way in time, so it’s no surprise when the pillow catches Jackson in the face with a  _whump_.

“Oh shoot, I’m-…I’m sorry!” Someone’s voice travels up from downstairs, and Jackson stares, stunned, the pillow now in his hands. “Did I-…did I hit anyone? Are you okay?”

Jackson runs up to the window, then, and Mark half-panics, wondering if he’s going to hurl abuse down at Jinyoung and get kicked out of the team by Jaebum before he even moves in (though wouldn’t that be a good thing?), before the boy sticks his head to look down.

“That was totally  _awesome_!” he shouts down, clearly ecstatic. “Can you do it again?”

There’s a politely puzzled silence from downstairs, and Mark rolls his eyes, going over to stick his head out of the window with Jackson.

“Hey, Jinyoungie,” he says, to the black-haired telekinetic, currently standing, confused and slightly unnerved, in the garden. “This is Jackson. He got assigned to our unit, he’s rooming with me.”

“Oh, hey Jackson!” Jinyoung smiles, though Mark doesn’t miss the way he glances at Mark in concern for a moment, as if to ask if  _you’re okay with this?_

Mark plaintively conveys his best  _I had no part in this decision because Jaebum obviously doesn’t give a damn_  face, before Jackson launches into an entire shouted conversation with Jinyoung, starting from where he came from and going into his favourite food and pastime. This carries on until Nayeon pokes her head out from the classroom two floors below, looking confused and slightly pissed off at the noise, and Mark has to drag Jackson away before any potentially fatal acidic spitballs are thrown their way.

*

Jackson moves into the room quickly- he has two, at most a little under three boxes of stuff, mostly black clothes and lots of odd herbal and organic foodstuffs, which barely fills the closet he’s allotted.

“Travel light,” he jokes, sitting with a thump on his bed. “Never know when you’ll have to move again.”

Mark had helped him unpack, only because he knew Jinyoung would nag if he didn’t, and sits cross-legged on his bed now, playing with the patterns on his bedspreads.

“The other rooms for this dorm, who do they belong to?” Jackson says curiously, peering out of their door into the central living room area. “That Jinyoung guy, does he live here too?”

“Yeah,” Mark shrugs. “We’re all assigned different units, each unit gets an apartment and the leader of the unit assigns you a room. Our leader’s Jaebum- grumpy sunglasses guy with the piercings, like you said.”

“There are other guys?”

“Yeah, they’ll be getting back in a while. Except for Youngjae- he’s in Busan studying cloud patterns, he’s coming back later tonight.”

Jackson frowns, about to open his mouth to ask, before deciding better of it. Mark smirks. He’s learning.

“So how does the school thing work, exactly?” The Hong Kong native stands again, seemingly unable to keep still, now looking through Mark’s pile of schoolbooks. “We still do the math science language thing?”

“Yeah,” Mark shrugs, pushing his hands into his pockets. “They think it’s important. Training’s mostly kept till after lessons.”

Jackson raises a brow. “Training? Like for superheroes?”

Mark scoffs. “Try training to control it, first, doofus.”

The other boy doesn’t respond- he’s staring at Mark’s desk. “Okay, I don’t mean to pry, man, but is there a reason for all your paperweights? Like is it a hobby, or something, to collect paperweights-…”

“Shit,” Mark’s eyes widen, and he pushes Jackson out of the way, before throwing the wide window open and jumping back. “I forgot, today’s-…”

There’s a one second, two second reprieve, before a ball of white and dark blue corkscrews through the window, and a strong gust of wind blows all of Mark’s books open and attempts (but fails) to send his papers into chaos.

The cannonbolt unravels, landing perfectly on its feet with a small whirlwind, and Yugyeom beams, arms wide in his landing pose, white wings spread in an arc. “Ta-daa~” he says proudly to Mark, who looks less than impressed. “Another perfect landing nailed. I’m going to pass the exam  _for sure_.”

“I still don’t understand why you have to use  _my_  window,” Mark grumbles, straightening all his things with an ease that can only be afforded to one who has to do this every single day.

“Yeah, hyung, well Jaebum  _did_  say we could trade so I could use the room with the big window, but  _you_  were like, no,” Yugyeom says, pulling off his shoes. “You know, having a roommate isn’t all  _that_ …” he’s turned around, finally noticing Jackson, and suddenly looks very self-conscious. “Bad. Oh. Uhm, hey.”

“This is Jackson, Jackson Wang,” Mark says, suddenly slightly uncomfortable. The ratio of awkward to socially adept people in this room is starting to unbalance. Then he adds, “He’s older than you.”

“Hi, Jackson hyung,” Yugyeom mumbles, bowing a little out of habit. “Uhm, I’m sorry, I don’t-…I don’t usually, uh, have the wings out. When I meet new people. Sorry if I messed up your-…”

“Are those real wings?” Jackson says, looking awed. “They’re so  _cool_.”

“You think so?” Yugyeom looks genuinely surprised, turning back to see the soft feathered appendages coming out of his back. “I mean. Yeah. They’re kind of cumbersome, though- oops,” the wings accidentally knock over a stack of books, which the other boy fumbles to catch. “Sorry Mark hyung.”

“Yeah, really," Jackson grins. "Yugyeom, right?"

"Oh, yeah, Jaebum mentioned a new addition when he messaged earlier!" Yugyeom says excitedly. "That's really cool, you're going to love this team, we're-..."

What exactly they are in Yugyeom's opinion, Mark never manages to find out, because at that very moment, there's a sharp  _crack_  and a burst of dark blue smoke, and suddenly Yugyeom’s flat on the floor and someone's sitting on him, looking curiously at the new addition to the dorm.

"Hi! I'm Bambam," The boy sitting with a very natural, practiced ease on top of a long suffering Yugyeom says enthusiastically. "I like your muscles."

To Mark's surprise (though should he honestly be surprised anymore, when it comes to Jackson), the other boy doesn't look the least awkward or embarrassed by the outlandish statement. "Thanks, I like them too," he says proudly instead, giving an obligatory flex.

Yugyeom looks slightly scandalised, but mostly awed, Bambam seems to puff up in uncontrollable, vibrating excitement, and Mark very slowly and deliberately rolls his eyes.

"You're so cool!" Bambam squeaks.

"Better check yourself before you wet yourself," Yugyeom grumbles, trying to push Bambam off him.

"That's Bambam, he's a transfer too, from Thailand. He teleports," Mark mumbles, as the sound of the door opening momentarily distracts everyone in the room.

"Bambam, get off Yugyeom," Jinyoung says absently as he strolls past the room, an assortment of different things trailing behind him in the air, before looking in to smile at Jackson. "Great to see you've settled in so fast." One of the things floating lazily behind Jinyoung (an English paperback) bumps into his head, and the telekinetic turns back to glare it. The book shrinks away with a small apologetic nod. “Anyway, anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask Mark or the rest of us.”

“Believe me, he won’t be hesitating,” Mark grumbles, and Jackson gives his best offended look.

It's about a moment after he leaves that another man stops by to walk in, lifting Bambam by the collar off Yugyeom and depositing him on Mark's bed, before turning to stare Jackson down through tinted maroon shades. Jackson very notably swallows, looking slightly uncomfortable, and Mark resists the urge to laugh.

"You got the briefing about what we do here from the professors?"

"Yessir," Jackson replies instantly, mockingly or not, Mark can't exactly tell.

"You know what this team means?"

"I will soon. Cool glasses, by the way."

"Don't do anything that'll make me take them off," Jaebum turns away, stretching as he walks out of the room, and the thundercloud aura that’d hung in the air moments before this seems to go out with him. He’s picking several articles of clothing off the sofa when he calls back to them. "Whoever doesn't have shit to rush, Jinyoung and I are going to pick up Youngjae after dinner, feel free to come along."

"Oh yeah, Jae's coming back tonight!" Yugyeom gets up from the floor, half tripping over his wings, and Bambam snickers. The youngest frowns, and Mark totally calls it when Yugyeom reaches over in one lightning movement, and the other boy squeals.

" _Jinyoung hyung_ ," Bambam wails, running out of the room, something long and dark trailing behind him from the seat of his pants. "Yugyeom made me Tail in front of the cool new guyyyy."

Mark and Jackson are left in the now empty room, poorly shielded from the chaos happening outside as the two youngest start arguing.

"Sorry about the-..." Mark gestures outside lamely for lack of anything better to describe it. "They're a little more sane on normal days, and JB's always like that- it takes some getting used to, but-…"

Jackson's beaming, face split into the biggest smile as he turns to look at Mark. "I love everything."

Mark looks over, hands folded nervously in front of him, a little puzzled and a little gratified. "Thanks."

He sees the other boy’s eyes follow his action, gaze lingering on his gloves for seconds that feel like hours, and when Jackson opens his mouth he braces instinctively.

But Jackson’s breath skips over his words, and the moment’s swept away by the force of his sentence. “So who’s this Youngjae you guys were talking about just now?”

*

Youngjae hugs everyone and everything when he meets them later in the cafeteria, and, as expected, is delighted to meet Jackson. The country dialect lingers in his words after two weeks in Busan, and he gushes for five minutes straight about how much he’s learnt.

Mark feels a certain odd sense of completeness as they troop into the dorm that night, the combined vocal efforts of Jackson, Youngjae and Bambam making Sungjin pop his head out of the opposite dorm to frown and inform them drily that  _some people are trying to study here._

Even when it’d been just the six of them, he’d felt content with the status quo, prickly at the thought of pushing his boundaries for more but unable to see them as any less. Now, though, with Jackson, it feels- strange. Happy. Whole.

He still wonders with a long suffering sigh if he could live without it, when they’re in the kitchen that night, ready to turn in, because the maknaes have broken all codes of conducts to blatantly ask Jackson what he can do.

“Okay, okay, check this out,” Jackson’s grinning, holding the bottle of soda that Yugyeom had eagerly gotten for him. There’s a moment of reverent silence from all three youngest, forming a little semicircle around him, and Mark, sitting at the opposite end of the kitchen eating watermelon slices.

Jackson plays it off, obviously putting a lot of effort into making it look as effortless as possible, focusing hard on the bottle, before lifting the mouth to his lips and blowing quickly.

There’s a collective  _ooh_  from the kids, and even Mark looks on, pretending he’s not interested, as the bottle frosts rapidly from the top to the bottom, and Jackson grins, lifting it in a toast (to himself, probably, that egoistic jerk) before downing a mouthful.

“That’s so  _cool_ ,” Youngjae’s looking on with wide eyes, as if forgetting the fact that he can pretty much make it rain lightning himself.

“Cool,” Jackson chuckles. “ _Get it_?”

There’s a muffled  _someone throw him out of the window_  from Jaebum, at the other end of the apartment, as the maknaes burst into laughter.

“Hyung, you need to  _chill_ ,” Jackson continues gleefully, and Mark groans into his mug of water, rolling his eyes. He can’t believe  _this_  is what he’s going to be rooming with until further notice.

Bambam makes it out of the kitchen with the bottle of soda, Youngjae lathering on praises for the intricate snowflake patterns on the side of the glass, while Jackson gets another bottle, doing the same thing, except without the bravado and bluff from earlier.

“Liked the trick?” he says smugly, settling opposite Mark at the kitchen island to take a sip, and Mark rolls his eyes again, unable to hold back a smile.

“Yeah, real cool, Jackson.”

“Then it’s your turn,” the other boy leans back, gaze flicking down to the gloves. His demeanour is curious, but not unkindly so- he has a knack for making himself out to be sincere to a fault. “What can you do? Let me guess,” he interjects quickly, squeezing his eyes shut in focus. “Fire. You’re a total pyromaniac. You need the gloves to stop the fire.”

“Nah, that’s Younghyun,” Mark takes a sip of water unenthusiastically. “Also, introduce me to these gloves you’re talking about that can apparently stop fire.”

“Meh…telepathy?” Jackson squints. “What am I thinking of.”

Mark shrugs. “A hardcore threesome.”

Jackson snorts. “Close. Okay, I’m out of ideas. Unless you’ve got like, super cool mouths on your hands that chew and shape explosive clay.”

“I wish,” Mark says drily. He waits out Jackson’s expectant look, before letting out a sigh, tugging the fingers of a glove out, before pulling the whole left glove off.

He hears Jackson let out a small disappointed noise at the lack of hand-mouths, and almost laughs. He doesn’t because he lifts the hand to lay it over Jackson’s, the one holding the bottle.

Jackson’s skin is both fire and ice against Mark’s at the same time, glowing with a powerful, restless cool energy, and for once it pulls Mark in, intrigues him to the point he almost doesn’t want to let go. For a moment, they remain like that, both holding the same bottle.

“Uh,” Jackson says, slightly confused. “No homo bro?”

Mark laughs again, waiting for the telltale drop of perspiration on Jackson’s crown, before he withdraws his hand like lightning, and the other boy blinks, hand quivering around the bottle.

“Whoa, was that like, some sort of possession, or something,” he sounds like he’s struggling to put words together- the usual, then.

“Something,” Mark shrugs, leaning over. Casually, he blows on the mouth of the bottle like Jackson had just now, and there’s a muted crackling as the soda freezes over into ice. “Cool, huh,” He lets out a colourless laugh, standing to put his mug in the sink.

As Mark turns around to give Jackson a glance, he’s surprised to see a smile on the other boy’s face.

“Pretty solid,” Jackson lifts the bottle then, grinning.

It takes Mark a moment to process it, but he eventually breaks into gales of laughter, harder than he ever remembers laughing, Jackson following almost immediately. This carries on until Bambam walks by, casting a curious look into the kitchen.

“That wasn’t bad,” Mark chuckles, dabbing at the corner of his eyes with his gloves, and the other boy puffs out his chest.

“I’m insulted you thought any less of me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t stay up too late,” Mark rolls his eyes, turning around to rinse the mug, before setting it on the dish rack. “Big first day tomorrow.”

When he turns around, though, Jackson’s wandered over with a grin, almost right in front of him, and he startles a little.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Mark backs against the sink instinctively, wincing as the closet handle digs into the back of his thigh. Eyes averted, he sidles away. “Well,” he shrugs. “See you back in the room later, then.”

He hurries out of the kitchen, unable to ignore the watchful eye Jinyoung’s giving him from across the room, or the fact that he’d left his left glove on the table in his rush to get out.

It’s too much all at once, and the roar at the back of Mark’s head is deafening, a persistent chant asking him how many rules he’s just broken in the past few minutes.

Whatever it is that’s started – all that matters is that it ends. Before people get hurt again.

But Mark returns to his (their) room after a shower, rubbing a towel into his hair, and spots the glove on his pillow, and is forced to stifle another laugh.

The fingers of the dark fabric have been arranged into the cheesiest finger heart he’s ever seen in his life. Mark debates sighing or continuing to laugh, and he neglects both in favour of a fond smile, swiping the glove and pulling it on.

Outside, the sound of Jackson’s shrieking laughter over a dumb video with Bambam echoes through the dorm, and Mark rolls his eyes, turning over to start surfing Youtube for cat videos. It’s loud, just loud enough to frighten away the ghosts of years past.

And for now, that’s all that Mark can ask for, if he’s to be honest.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> /throws myself at spy au   
>  /gets thrown back out


End file.
